Friday, October 16, 2015

Plural Marriage Now: 3 Gay Men 'Marry' — Polyamory

Marriage in America will soon mean anything (and thus nothing), just as several justices of the U.S. Supreme Court wrote in their dissents of the June "gay marriage" decree.

The all-too-common news includes a homosexual couple who divorced so that they could jointly marry a third man; they have plans to produce three children.

The courts are ready, and the litigants are lined up.

“If we would have been having this conversation 10 years ago, I’d be a lot more nervous about having it at all. But today, it feels like the tide is shifting toward accepting people for who and what they are. I may be grossly naïve but that seems to be where they’re going.”-- Jason (in a polyamorous union)

It is difficult to determine the actual number of people in such relationships because of a lack of research, but they are becoming more visible because of the Internet and social media, according to psychologist Meg Manthos, whose clientele is about 30 percent poly groups.

And according to a national Avvo.com study from June 2015, about 4 percent of the U.S. population admits to being in an open relationship, which amounts to about 12.8 million people, or roughly three times the population of Kentucky.

Elisabeth Sheff, author of the book “The Polyamorists Next Door,” said the key to making polyamory work is communication.

She wrote in a Psychology Today story that polyamorous people “put a lot of emphasis on communication as a way to build intimacy, explore boundaries, negotiate agreements, and share feelings.”

[Jasper Wirtshafter] started dating a man who brought up the idea of polyamory first. Wirtshafter began dating polyamorously throughout college, and after attending Beyond the Love, a polyamory convention in Columbus in November 2013, he was inspired to start a chapter — Athens Poly.

Although many of the people that come to Athens Poly events also identify as LGBT, Wirtshafter said the majority of the people at Beyond the Love were couples or triples, middle-aged, and mostly heterosexual.

One of the biggest misconceptions about polyamory is that it’s an excuse to be unfaithful or have an affair, Delfin Bautista, director of the LGBT Center, said. Sarah Jenkins, program coordinator for the Women’s Center, said . . . Polyamory focuses more on equality, rather than control, in the multiple relationships . . .